If you're already compulsively playing Foursquare and find yourself notching up points at, say, LSE, you're in for a treat. The Financial Times new deal with a handful of leading business schools is the first major deal for the location service Foursqure in the UK, and demonstrates both the kind of marketing campaigns we will be seeing much more of, and how mainstream casual gaming has become.

guardian.co.uk

Foursquare users at the cafes in Cass, LSE, London Business School, Harvard and Columbia will be able to earn secret codes that will give them access to premium subscriptions for FT.com. More venues will be added as the campaign continues.

For Foursquare, this is an opportunity to promote itself to a wealthy and entrepreneurially minded userbase, while the FT gets a very fashionable marketing campaign. "We're conscious we need to engage with readers in different ways," said Rob Grimshaw, the FT's head of digital operations. This is just one of a range of initiatives that are pushing the FT brand in social media spaces in ways that allow a different relationship with us, and there and tangible results."

As I wrote last week, there is considerable potential in 'funware' for the news and publishing industries, and in incentivising a loyal community through a competitive points and rewards system where editorially appropriate. Grimshaw said that Twitter and Facebook are important tools in bringing people to the FT site, and though Foursquare is unproven as yet it is important to engage and experiment. As for the FT's own in-house developers, Grimshaw wouldn't give absolute figures but said no organisation trying to reshape its business for the digital age could ever have enough. "You could double the developer resource and still not have enough."

Of late, the FT has found itself at the centre of a seemingly climactic discussion about the success, or not, of paywall systems. It has had some credit for its own strategy of a paid web subscription, but one that allows casual users access to ten articles each month, and overall counted 126,000 paying subscribers at the end of the financial year. The next push is with a daily pass, and plans for a carnet of day passes. This mirrors the newspaper itself, said Grimshaw.

"We accept that there are those people committed enough to subscribe annually, and a group that love the content but don't want to commit to an annual subscription, and there's a similar distinction online. Just offering an annual subscription is not enough. so there's potential there."

And how much potential is in the iPad? "The publishing industry is always looking to fix on the next saviour and there's a lot of hype. But the pragmatic view is this is a new product and, for the next 12 months there won't be enough people with one to make the community significant. At day one, this is about experimenting and playing with the channel, and while that might be important it is not central to our business."

Grimshaw said it raises questions over the extent to which it competes with the phone and with ereaders as a content platform, and suggested the answer might be in how consumers treat the device. "I think users will like the experience and the evolution," he said.

As ever, when the advertising market slumps, subscription looks like a great idea, and for the FT the paid-access strategy is reinforced by a wealthy and specialist audience base. But other publications, too, have to explore paid access in this climate. Grimshaw quoted recent IAB figures that put search ads at 60% of the UK online ad market, while display accounts for 20%.

"When you think about the different companies trying to float operations from that 20%… social media outfits, traditional publishers, portals, specialists and ad networks - it's just not big enough to float everyone's ambitions.